This comes just as the industry braces for what it expects to be the unveiling of Sony's next-generation PlayStation 4, or codename 'Orbis', at tomorrow's NYC event.

A report last week claimed that the PlayStation 4 will be capable of playing PS3 games via cloud streaming service Gaikai.

If true, this would provide a feasible solution to the issue of backwards compatibility on the new console - a feature that would be otherwise difficult to achieve due the likelihood of a vastly differing internal architecture to PS3."

Following up on their previous hints, rumors and specs, today Sony Social Media Manager Sid Shuman invites PlayStation fans to see the future in an event scheduled for February 20th, 2013.

Below is their Be The First To Know video teaser into the future of PlayStation, with Sony planning a big announcement at 6PM EST on February 20th, 2013 just ahead of its Destination PlayStation event.

Currently all fans can do is speculate whether Sony planning to announce details on its next-gen plans ahead of E3 2013 with an early unveiling of the PS4 / Orbis / PlayStation 4 console.

According to Wedbush industry analyst Michael Pachter via Twitter: "Sony is inviting investors and media to the Feb 20 event; that means console announcement. I'm genuinely excited, although I will be in LA."

The Wall Street Journal reports that not only will Sony debut its next-gen console at the event, but that it will be released later this year. To quote:

“Sony’s device will be released later this year, these people [familiar with the matter] said, and will spar against Microsoft’s own machine, which is also expected to be released by the holidays,” wrote the publication.

The new system will incorporate “more social gaming aspects” and be more focused on “changes in how users interact with the machine” versus “hardware improvements,” according to the outlet.

At one point, the PlayStation manufacturer considered removing the system’s disc drive in favor for an all-digital console, said The Wall Street Journal. But concerns over game file size and slow internet connections made them scrap the idea. Microsoft is said have made a similar decision.

Finally, according to TheSixthAxis.com a PlayStation.com redirect suggests PS4 is indeed the final name.

To quote: "Visit http://us.playstation.com/ps4/ and it takes you to the PlayStation front page. Visit anything else, for example /ps5 or /orbis, and it doesn’t, you get a 404 error.

What can this trickery possibly mean? Well, apart from the fact that somebody at Sony knows how to set up a proper redirect, it strongly suggests that Orbis is out of the window and Sony are sticking to prior experience: the PS4 will be – wait for it – called the PS4.

Orbis, then, was just the codename, as we suspected." As always, time will tell!